1904-5.] THE MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. 19! 
THE MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. 
By CHar.es A. Hopcerrs, M.D., L.R.C.R. LOND., SECRETARY OF THE 
PROVINCIAL BOARD OF HEALTH OF ONTARIO AND 
DEPUTY REGISTRAR-GENERAL. 
(Read 17th December, 1904). 
DuRING the past few years the attention of educationists and health 
authorities, and incidentally that of the general public has been directed 
to the great need which exists for medical supervision of school children 
along special lines. It is not my intention to discuss any of these special- 
ties, for they are simply factors in the one great question which it is pro- 
posed to discuss this evening; the adoption of which, would of necessity 
include the various sub-divisions which up to the present have claimed 
notice, and the advocacy of which has disturbed educational authorities 
chiefly from the fact, no doubt, they have felt there was justice in the 
demand made by each,—but to grant the request of the surgeon dentists 
for instance, would be to establish a precedent whereby, oculist, aurist, 
orthopedist, or other specialist, would each expect similar concessions, and 
the result would be to confuse the teacher and scholar, confound the 
parents, and in the end result disastrously on educational methods as 
now in force. For these reasons, together with those of a monetary 
character, is to be ascribed the fact that up to the present the question 
of medical inspection and supervision has made but little headway. 
‘The educationist has seen his routine of school work disturbed by the 
visit of this or that ‘specialist,’ and attendance become disorganized by 
reason of the demands made of scholars for the treatment of those re- 
ferred by this or that particular examiner.”’ 
The School Board and the ratepayers have seen the financial dif- 
ficulties that would have to be met, but they never could see the end. 
With the growth of the Public School system one important specialty, 
if I may so term it, has forced itself upon all that there was need for some 
discrimination in respect to children suffering with or recovering from 
contagious diseases; hence some temporary measures have been adopted 
to prevent their spread. But to a student of the question, or to those 
more intimately connected with either education or sanitation, they 
cannot be considered as either satisfactory or permanent. It is, how- 
ever, a move in the right direction, and the only reason that it has thus 
early found a place in the statute books, is the fact of its appealing di- 
